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I'm aware of that argument, but I don't believe that it holds as much weight in practice as it may appear at first blush. Certainly they would argue a percentage of "successful" advertising would be lost. But those of us that are really ad averse don't buy things from them anyhow. I can't think of the last time I clicked on an Internet ad. It's been years. For the past half-dozen or so years I've watched very little television, and listen to no commercial radio due to my aversion to 50% ad content. So they lost me a long time ago anyhow. By not viewing the dang things on web pages, I'm basically just saving them bandwidth. Those persons who click them (you are out there somewhere, they make billions annually) I think would not be so quick to turn them off. Also, there are alternatives. I have used services that force you to watch an ad prior to reading their article. For the occasional random article, I'll tolerate the ad if I want the article bad enough. One site I read frequently dismissed with this irritation if you paid -- and I did for several years. So there are ways around this -- we're not going to kill content providers. I recall recently reading (probably on isc.sans.org) about hackers that were redirecting users to malware infected sites using google ads. Security concerns of this severity, on top of the already ubiquitous tracking of users through cookies (ie. Doubleclick), raises the bar. I imagine many corporate IT units have every reason to block IPs on this basis. Interesting conversation, as usual. Cheers, Brian Hoort -----Original Message----- From: Peter J Murray [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, November 05, 2007 12:09 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Changed to: Host File blocking (was Rural High Speed Internet Service Providers) Firefox has a plug in called ad block plus that would do a better job, but there is some controversy, because if more and more people do this, 'free' web sites will have to find other sources of revenue. Hoort, Brian wrote: > I too, am a big fan of these, and after using them for ~3 years, I've > never once had a problem with it. I'm not only a fan due to the speed, > but also the fabulous reduction in business on web pages. No more > jumping, bleeping, moving, blinking, neon ads distracting me to death > while trying to read an article online. However, I've only used it on > my own computers. Has anyone done this throughout their department? I > would appreciate some feedback on how that went over -- were there ever > complaints about the "file not found" errors, etc.? Have you ever had a > user not be able to surf to a needed site? > > (If you don't know what we're talking about, google "host file block" > and read up a bit--it's an admirably simple solution to the problem.) > > Brian Hoort > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Sean O'Malley [mailto:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Monday, November 05, 2007 11:10 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Rural High Speed Internet Service Providers > > Not to change the subject, but i did find mapping stuff like: > ssl.google-analytics.com > pagead.googlesyndication.com > www.doubleclick.net > to 127.0.0.1 > > Gives a considerable speed boost especially with low-bandwidth, > low-memory, and slow processor situations. (most ads are big flash > files.) > I use it with high speed. > > You do get "missing images" and "file not found" errors on the pages, > but > you aren't downloading ads, your tracking cookies aren't timing out, and > rasterization of the pages is a lot faster. > > I just use a host list, but a dns server is a lot cooler and simpler way > to maintain it acrossed several machines. You can find premade lists on > the net. > > I have always wondered how much the university network bill would drop > if > everyone on campus used it. > > > On Mon, 5 Nov 2007, Lee A Duynslager wrote: > > >> I have a faculty member who would have to pay a considerable amount of >> > money > >> approx. $2K to have Millenium cable run out to their rural home. >> >> I was wondering if any of you have any experience with Wild Blue High >> > Speed > >> Internet Service or know of anybody who does? >> >> http://www.wildblue.com/ >> >> >> Thank You in Advance, >> >> Lee Duynslager >> >> > > -------------------------------------- > Sean O'Malley, Information Technologist > Michigan State University > ------------------------------------- > >